British Astronauts

Saturday, 18 July 2015

Hi everyone, this is a quick note to say that I've decided to move this blog over to Wordpress. I'm doing this for a few reasons: having used Wordpress for my own blog I've found it to be a far more capable platform; Google, which owns the Blogger platform, is known for shutting down weak services from time to time (Blogger doesn't appear to have received many updates in recent years, which I take as a bad sign); and it means I can centralise everything rough one platform (and get rid of a redundant app). My new address will be https://britishastronauts.wordpress.com/ and I hope to be able to copy all blog posts over to the new address very soon.

I'm moving house myself, too, which has forced me to put other things on pause for a bit, but I have something about this week's UK Space Conference to put up shortly and I also have the new Space Environments and Human Spaceflight Strategy to review. During term time most of my time and effort goes on my degree but as I'm free for the summer I hope to report on and extend the work I have carried out for my dissertation.

Tuesday, 9 June 2015

Several years ago I started this blog to act as a platform
to share my enthusiasm for human spaceflight. I had been inspired by a number
of experiences, such as the UK Space conference and meeting several astronauts.
At the same time, however, I was also struggling with the combination of
Asperger syndrome, a degree in Space Systems Engineering, and the aftermath of
a family bereavement, so unfortunately I had to let this blog go for a while.

Over the past year, however, I've been working on a
dissertation entitled “Should the UK invest in human spaceflight and, if so,
how?” This dissertation took a broad look at where the UK space community
has come from, where it is and where it's going. Through this I have learned a
lot about why the UK took such a limited approach to space in the past and how
this contrasts with the efforts and results of other nations, how UK space
policy has changed so dramatically over the past decade and what future
opportunities are going to look like. My conclusion is that over the coming
five to ten years, perhaps sooner, we're going to see an intersection of this
changed government approach to space, growing public enthusiasm and
'space-mindedness' following Tim Peake's mission to the ISS and the possible opening
of a spaceport, and the availability of launchers and operators that can slash
the cost of getting into space. These things are happening now, and it's
important that we move quickly to seize the moment before we get left behind.

A few years ago I participated briefly in the Space Entrepreneurs
UK meetup group. That group subsequently folded and it seems there's been
little activity on that front for a while. It seems like now is a good time to
get it started up again. The British Interplanetary Society has been looking at
the future of astronautics itself recently and I know that some members,
including some who were involved in Space Entrepreneurs UK originally, might be
supportive of this. In the meantime, I hope to be able to report on some of
what I've learned and examine it more deeply.

Sunday, 9 September 2012

You know, when I set up this blog I never intended to just be passing on news and links to other websites and material. There are other sites that do this; I wanted to do more. Unfortunately I've had other things on my mind. That's about to end now.

We're coming to the end of the Paralympic games, having had the Olympics a couple of weeks earlier, and I think everyone would agree that they have been a great success. But what have they delivered? How have they benefited our country? I don't doubt that they've done so of course but as a country we've spent the best part of £10 billion on the games and I want to be able to say why. (To put that figure into a space-based perspective the International Space Station reputedly cost US$100 billion—about £62.5 billion at today's exchange rate—to build.)

I don't begrudge that money for a second: even if this country had a human spaceflight programme now, we'd still have spent it and would still have got the same value out of it. But I sense an analogy here. Just as our Olympic athletes inspire a generation to take up sports, so our astronauts could inspire a generation to take up careers in science and engineering.

At the UK Space Conference back in 2011 Jeremy Curtis, UK Space Agency's head of Education, made some very upbeat remarks about attitudes to human Spaceflight; effectively, "make the case and you will get an astronaut". I don't doubt that would be a difficult task, though it would be one very worth doing, and I suspect that much evidence is already out there and simply needs to be collated together.

Monday, 26 September 2011

In their latest Eclipse e-newsletter UKSEDS have proclaimed “Professor Quatermass has got nothing on us...”: for, in conjunction with the British Interplanetary Society, they are planning to send a cubesat to the moon!

The Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 3 cm/year; can we really afford to let it get away with this?

UKSEDS, together with the British Interplanetary Society, plan to send a CubeSat orbiter to the Moon! We're in the early planning stages yet, but the aim is for a mission in 2013/2014. Resources and support from third parties have recently become available to make this a serious proposition and what we need right now are volunteers. Would you like to be involved, or know someone who does? If so: contact us!

Sunday, 11 September 2011

Sorry for the lack of activity recently; not a great start to the blog. Blogging has been on pause for a while as I’ve been preoccupied with house-hunting and a few other things. I have, however, taken on an ad-hoc role with UKSEDS helping to keep their website ukseds.org and the Big Space Calendar up to date.

An important talk is coming up at the Royal Aeronautical Society. Dr. Thomas Reiter, ESA astronaut and Director of ESA’s new Directorate of Human Spaceflight and Operations, is to give a lecture at the RAeS entitled Europe's Human Spaceflight Programme: Current Planning and Future Options. The lecture takes place at 6.00pm on Monday 19th September and is being jointly organised with the Centre for Space Medicine at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London.

With the demise of the Space Shuttle and the continuing debate in the USA as to what should follow it Europe’s plans for human spaceflight are the subject of much debate. The Space Station also needs a crew to operate it and ESA has an astronaut corps, consisting of 8 Europeans, who are training for the upcoming missions. They are supported by a team of ground support staff who work in the European training, control and user centres.

Refreshments will be available from 5.30pm and a post-lecture reception will follow, sponsored by Logica. This lecture is free to attend for both members and non-members alike; to confirm your attendance email conference@aerosociety.com or go to the event page and click on ‘Register for this event’.

P.S., it seems that David Mackay’s lecture at the Southend branch of the RAeS has been cancelled as it no longer appears on the RAeS events calendar. It has been replaced with a talk by Stuart Eves from SSTL entitled Sophisticated Small Satellites from Surrey.

Thursday, 28 July 2011

Captain David Mackay, Virgin Galactic’s Chief Test Pilot, is to speak at the Southend branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Subject to US Security clearance Captain Mackay, who was recently the subject of an article in The Telegraph, will pilot Virgin’s flagship VSS Enterprise on its maiden voyage carrying Sir Richard Branson and his family into space. Until then all test flights are being flown by US pilots from the development partners Scaled Composites.

The event takes place on 8th November 2011 from 8.00pm to 9.30pm at The Royal Naval Association, 79 East Street, Southend on Sea, SS2 6LQ. For more details contact Sean Corr at sean895@btinternet.com or see the link below.